A practice device of the kind referred to in the preamble is known from the Swedish patent specification No. 366919. This shows a ball catching assembly connected to a ball feeding assembly, from which balls are dropped down against a rebound surface. The rebound surface is tilted inwards towards the ball catching assembly, such that a ball which is dropped from above with the aid of the ball feeding assembly will bounce out from the practice apparatus towards the player.
The known ball catching assembly consists of a canvas against which the balls are directed and from which the balls will fall down into a funnel shaped space having an outlet opening. A disadvantage with this known ball catching assembly is that the balls tend to prevent themselves from falling down through the outlet opening, towards which opening they roll from two opposite directions.
Instead of dropping the balls against a rebound surface it is also known to propel the balls with the aid of compressed air through a propulsion tube, as is described e.g. in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,584,614 and the European patent specification No. A1 0043886.
Training apparatuses of the type mentioned in the preamble are described also in the German patent publication No. 2456997. According to an embodiment shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 the ball collecting assembly consists of a chute of flexible material and having a rounded bottom. The ball catching device consists of canvas which directs the balls such that they will fall down into the chute. Although the chute consists of a flexible material, it cannot be avoided that balls frequently rebound upwards and out of the chute. Further, balls which follow the rear side of the chute may roll down with such a speed along the rear side that they will proceed up over the front edge and in that way escape from the chute. Another drawback with the rounded design, which has been proved during the development of the present invention, is that balls can be jammed towards one another and in that way fasten on their route along the bottom of the chute towards the feeding-out opening, and this tendency can even be greater if the chute is made of a flexible material. FIGS. 14 and 15 in the German patent publication No. 2456998 illustrate another embodiment of a training apparatus according to the preamble. In this case, it is true that the bottom of the chute is essentially flat, which may prevent said jamming of the balls. In order to prevent the rebound effect, the bottom of the chute, however, has been made of a network with sufficiently small mesh size in order to prevent the balls from passing through. A material of this type is not a good roll bed for the balls with the result that the balls may be prevented from rolling to the feeding-out opening in the lowest located point of the chute. Evidently, in order to prevent the balls from rebounding out from the chute over the net, the chute has also been made very broad, which is not a good solution, since it would take a considerable space from the training court at the same time as the practice apparatus will be difficult to stow away when it is not in use.